Poll: A Third of Americans Couldn't Afford Medical
Treatment

February 20, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The problem of
rising health care costs come home in a real way for many
Americans last year as a new poll found a third delayed
getting needed medical care because they couldn't afford
it

Some 31% of the 1,000 people polled by the Gallup
Organization for the Reader’s Digest Family Index said they
encountered the problem of health treatment that was simply
too expensive, according to a report in Obesity, Fitness
& Wellness Week. To top it off, of that group, 57% said
the medical problem was very or somewhat serious.

These results mean that in the past year, 18% of all US
families – more than one in six – experienced a serious
health problem representing a bill they couldn’t pay.

“The Readers Digest Family Index demonstrates vividly
the impact that health care costs have on American
families,” said Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the
American Enterprise Institute and Reader’s Digest Family
Index advisor, in a statement. “The stunning number in the
Family Index – that nearly a third of American families had
put off medical treatment because they could not afford it
– makes the abstract problem real indeed.”

The number of workers at corporations with more than 500
employees who lack health coverage has increased by 50%
since 1987, reports The Commonwealth Fund, a health-care
research foundation.